


-10°C By Midnight

by padfootagain



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 13:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17044373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/padfootagain/pseuds/padfootagain
Summary: You and Charlie are chasing a dragon through a snowstorm in the middle of a mountain. Bad idea…





	-10°C By Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> Just a fluffy thing I wrote for an event on tumblr with the prompts :   
> 41\. “There’s this party… I wondered… would you go with me?”  
> 43\. “Let’s spend Christmas together, and New Year’s Eve… actually… actually let’s spend every single evening together for the rest of our lives.”  
> 47\. “I need body warmth. And you’re just like a heater on two legs.”  
> Hope you like it!

“This whole thing is getting completely out of hand!”

“I am not the one who volunteered to keep an eye on that dragon!”

“I beg your pardon? You were not complaining at first!”

“Yes, but I never thought that we would have to climb a mountain in the middle of winter and freeze to death!”

“What’s going on with you anyway? Where is the ever-happy Charlie Weasley, huh? The one who thinks it’s fun to get half of his hair roasted by a dragon?”

“That haircut it gave me was bloody hilarious…”

“You are utterly crazy.”

“Crazy? Maybe. But suicidal? No. And I don’t like getting cold. Why do you think I love dragons so much?”

“Well, this one seems to be willing to take some fresh air.”

Charlie didn’t answer, but merely pestered under his breath as he tripped on a root of a tiny and quite miserable-looking bush. At this altitude, and at this time of the year though, it wasn’t so surprising to find the vegetation dying. You tightened your hold on your warm coat, fighting against the snowflakes that hit your face and made it so hard to see, as they got caught in your eyelashes. Despite his anger and his loud voice, the roaring wind almost covered Charlie’s words. You took a look on your left, where you should have seen the proud peak of the neighbouring mountain standing tall, but for now, you could see nothing but clouds of light grey covering the whole world. A shiver shook your whole frame, and your teeth chattered for a moment, until you clenched your jaw tightly enough to stop any movement. You saw Charlie slipping on snow again, but this time, he fell head first in the snow.

“Are you okay?” you asked with concern in your voice.

“Yeah… yeah,” he replied with an annoyed tone.

“This is getting ridiculous,” you shook your head. “We should go back.”

You had to shout for your voice to be heard through what had turned into a blizzard, the wind cutting your cheeks as sharply as a knife.

But Charlie checked the watch at his wrist, and it was his time to shake his head.

“No hope left. We can’t go back, we won’t have reached any shelter before night would fall. Which, in this weather, means serious trouble.”

“What should we do then?”

“Find shelter.”

“How do we do that?”

“We trust our luck.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a plan!”

“You have a better idea? Cause then, I’ll take it!”

“I don’t know…”

“We should try to find shelter. We already know that we didn’t come across anything that could remotely be used as that when we climbed up here. Our only chance is to keep going.”

You heaved a sigh. You wished you could find something else to do to get out of this dangerous situation, but your mind was desperately blank.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” you mumbled under your breath.

“Considering that it’s your fault if we’re here, you’d better shut it.”

“Hey! Weasley! Language!”

“Y/L/N! Since when are you so offended!?” he laughed at your face, mimicking your tone in a ridiculous way.

He had this smug little smirk on his face again. The one he always had when he joked. The one that never failed to make your heart leap in your chest. And despite the cold weather, and your certainty that you had been turned into an ice-cube by now, you could feel your heart jump in your chest nonetheless. Really, this man had too much effect on you…

But did you have a choice? Hell no. If you had you would have never developed such feelings for the red-haired man who walked before you in the snow. Not when you knew that he liked another woman…

Stephany. The beautiful and woman-like Stephany. You were not exactly sexy, dressed 99% of your time either in pyjamas or large clothes that you needed to work with magical creatures. Hard to look at your best then, you guessed. Although, you were not sure that some make-up and fit clothes would make any difference in that matter…

Stephany was the archetype of attractive. You were the archetype of… common.

Lost in your own thought – and misery of unrequited love – you tripped on a stone hidden by the thick layer of snow, and fell, your hands sinking in the soft ice past your wrists. You didn’t have any time to get up again, as Charlie was bending down to help you, worry painted all over his face.

“Are you okay?”

Your jaw was shaken by the cold, and you needed a moment to be able to answer as your teeth went through another one of their chattering crises.

“I'm… fine,” you stuttered, shivering more than ever.

But his usually cool looks were replaced by a frown of worry now. He took your hands in his, and despite your gloves and his, he knew that they were frozen.

“We need to find shelter, you’re so cold, Y/N…”

“I had noticed,” you snorted.

“Come on, stay close to me.”

He wrapped his arm around your shoulders and helped you up the slope of the mountain again. And the way your heart raced because of how close he held you made your brain freeze too, unable to make any thought anymore and to ask why Charlie was suddenly being so over-protective. Instead, you merely followed him through the storm.

It took the two of you thirty more minutes to reach a little cavern that was wide enough to be used as shelter.

“Here, sit down,” he commanded in a soft but firm voice.

“Charlie… I’m so cold,” you complained, your voice growing weak.

“I know, it’s okay. We’re out of the storm now.”

He went outside, and your eyes grew round as you watched him walk away.

“Charlie?! Charlie!”

But he ignored you, and was not back before several minutes, with a few bits of wood that he gathered at the centre of the little cave. He was shivering too by now, his red lock drenched with melted snow falling before his eyes.

He took out his wand, and quickly lit up a fire, before summoning some warm wind that he blew on your face, warming you up instantly.

“Thank you,” you smiled.

He dried his hair, before scooting next to you.

“Are you okay?” he asked with concern.

“I’ll survive.”

“Not so sure about that…”

“I don’t like it when you’re the pessimist one. Really. I don’t like it at all… It doesn’t suit you.”

“Well… looks like we’re switching roles for once.”

“Do you really think that we could die here?”

“No,” he reassured you. “Maybe lose a toe or two though…”

“Charlie!”

“I’m just kidding.”

You fell silent, and the two of you remained there, quiet in the cavern while the blizzard roared outside. Night slowly fell upon the world, and you and Charlie shared the sandwiches you never failed to carry with you whenever you went in the wild. Clearly, you were right to have caught that habit.

You were starting to feel sleepy when you checked the time on your wristwatch. It was almost midnight.

“How cold do you think it is?” you asked Charlie out of the blue.

He shrugged, blowing in his gloves to warm up his numb face.

“Around… -10…”

“What? Celsius?’

"Yup…”

“Damn, that’s cold…”

“I know. But we’ll be fine.”

“See, the optimistic role suits you so much better than me!”

He chuckled.

“And well… better bring you back with all your toes, or Stephany might want to kill me,” you joked.

But instead of laughing, or worse, blushing, Charlie merely looked at you with a puzzled expression.

“What does Stephany have anything to do with me?” he asked, clearly confused.

“Well… I don’t know… rumours…”

But you stopped mid-sentence, and he had to insist for you to go on.

“I’m listening, Y/N.”

“Rumours speak of you two… you know…”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Apparently, she likes you. And you like her.”

He looked at you with round eyes and an aghast face for a moment, before exploding with laughter.

“Stephany?! You think I like Stephany?!”

He kept on laughing loudly, loudly enough for his laughter to cover all sounds of the storm, and he soon had to wipe the tears out of his eyes.

But you weren’t really paying attention to his very happy and contagious laugh. Instead, you were trying to process the meaning of his words…

Did that mean that he… didn't… like Stephany?

“So you… don’t like her?” you asked shyly.

“Of course not! I mean… she's… beautiful, but… hell, is she boring!”

“Really? You think she’s boring?”

“Of course! I mean… looks like she can only talk about gossips, and make-up and clothes and… I don’t like that kind of women at all. I like… I like women with humour, and who aren’t afraid to say what they think and are generous and hilarious and brave and… much more like…”

His eyes rose from the dancing flames to meet yours, and it seemed that he had captured your very soul.

“Someone more like you, actually.”

Your jaw dropped and you must have looked rather funny, because despite his reddening cheeks, Charlie was smiling. You couldn’t find a way to care about your dumbstruck look though. You were too shocked to think about anything at all.

“What… what do you mean?” you asked in a shaking breath.

“I mean…”

He bit down on his lower lip in hesitation, but spoke again, eventually.

“You know… _There’s this party…_ With my family, for Christmas, and I was wondering… I mean… _I wondered… would you go with me?”_

“You want me to go with you to see your family?” you repeated his words, too shocked to believe in them.

“Yeah… is that too much?” he asked, narrowing his eyes in an attempt to determine if you were mad at him or not.

But you were not mad at all, you were simply too shocked… perhaps you had hit your head at one point, or the cold had frozen all your braincells… you didn’t know the scientific explanation for your behaviour, but what you knew was that you couldn’t find a way to speak for a long moment.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” he reassured you. “I mean… I… would really like you to come, but if you don’t feel like it, it’s alright. We’ll still be friends then, as you… you don’t seem to feel the same as I do.”

“Feel? Same? You?”

Here it was… you had reached the next stage of insanity and were now unable to formulate proper sentences, wonderful…

“I like you,” he confessed. “A lot. I don’t like Stephany at all.”

“But…”

He raised an eyebrow.

“But what?”

“I’m not like Stephany at all…”

“Which is precisely why I like you and not her.”

You exchanged a warm smile. He reached for your hand, and you let him wrap his fingers around yours.

“Y/N, let's… please come to this party with me,” he asked in a shaking breath, his eyes too intense for you to have even just a chance to look away. _“Let’s spend Christmas together, and New Year’s Eve… actually… actually let’s spend every single evening together for the rest of our lives.”_

You grinned, nodding your head as your throat was too tight with emotions to form any word.

“What do you say?”

You shivered because of the cold again, and you hesitated to answer with an earnest and excited ‘yes!’. But you couldn’t let him get away with the last clever word, could you?

“I think… I think _I need body warmth. And you’re just like a heater on two legs.”_

He let out a bright wave of laughter, before he opened his arms for you to find refuge in his warm embrace.

“So… if we survive to this cold night… should I take it as a yes?” he asked in a whisper in your ear, making you grin.

“Yes, Charlie. You should.”


End file.
